The Instagram Experiment part 1

I avoided social media for the longest time until getting a job with a marketing firm. I had never wanted to be on Facebook and I found myself writing for clients so I had to embrace Facebook and soon Instagram.

We started getting clients requesting us to do their Instagram posting so the firm decided to run a contest to see who could get the most followers. The rules of the contest were simple, who could get the most followers organically without paying for tools to help get followers or buying them in one month wins.

I love a good challenge and I am very competitive so I was out to win. The first thing to do is research so I had to go first to an expert in getting social media followers who happen to be my 15-year-old daughter. Problem is she was not out to build a following for the purpose of promoting a business or selling a product. She has a large following that she built naturally since I work with marketers I was like hey you need to monetize that.  Add some affiliates or get a sponsor but she is not interested in that as she does it to share knowledge.

I think being a graphic designer and an artist I did have an advantage as Instagram is a more about visuals I would post pictures of my some of my paintings and some of my best photographs as well as some of my design projects. These paid off by getting followers and a lot of likes. I found by asking people who liked my postings to follow that they would follow back. I saw this as a good strategy of getting followers.

At first, I did what I think a lot of people do where they just start following everyone that is recommended. I found that I just ended up following a bunch of people who I was not interested in and that was not interested in what I was posting and I was getting a lot of unwanted content in my feed.

I think that is not a good strategy for a business. I think as a business the best strategy would seek those that would be interested in what you are offering and start following them and perhaps they will follow you. 

Tagging is of course very important and something I am still getting a grasp on. It is my understanding if you are posting in very popular tags you will get less visibility as it will not stay up top for long whereas using something a little more specific you will get more time at top and actually find people that are actually interested specifically in what you are posting, for example, posting a photo of a duck if you tag it as duck photos it won’t be seen for long as there are many ducks so be sure use specific tagging as well like wooden ducks. 

In the end, I did win the contest I received more followers than all the other team members put together. I went from zero to over 250 followers who still follow me even a month after without posting.

My goal was to win and to increase traffic to my portfolio site although I did hope to bring in a client for either myself or the marketing firm I work for I did achieve the 2 objectives I won and traffic to my website jumped considerably. So, in the end, Instagram just in one month did prove to be a good way to showcase my work and bring people to my website.

My next goal is to see how I can monetize my Instagram so stay tuned for part 2.